THE SCHOOL OF TRUTH LECTURE OMNIPRESENCE

If the world and its people dwelt for just five minutes on the meaning of OMNIPRESENCE, all fear would be eliminated. I said all fear. If it is true, and I sincerely believe it must be true, that the presence of God is everywhere evenly present at the same time in you and in me and in the whole universe, can you tell me why it is that people fear? Again if it is true that God created the heavens and the earth, you and all things, and called these things good, why is it that all we see is error and negation and so-called evil? Let us look for a moment through each other's eyes, and that implies all people, what do you think the majority of people are seeing today? What are they registering in their emotional make-up, what is the impact inwardly? One of faith in the presence of God? Or is it one of fear of the absence of God? Now each one of you is responsible, solely responsible, for the type of good or lack of good that is going to manifest in your body and in your affairs. I cannot sufficiently stress it; it has nothing whatever to do with time, circumstances, people and conditions, outside of yourself. You and I are solely responsible for the good or the lack of good manifesting for us or not manifesting for us. It is as impossible, as you have so often heard me say, for us to create evil as it is for us to create darkness and take that darkness and to put it into the light and the light will be dissipated by the darkness.

It is impossible because, as far as I know, as far as all the great teachers are concerned --Christ and the other wonderful teachers-- there is but one Presence, one Power, and that Presence and Power is God, and He, alone, is the Creator. He created us, of course, in His own image, not as a person; in the ability to think and to feel and to register. He is not some anthropomorphic being somewhere up in the sky and you and I are made in His image; we are made in His image to see good. Now it is our business in the School of Truth to come into contact, not only personally, but by and through letter, with many thousands of people during the month and we see through the eyes of these people who write to us and who speak to us. They tell us just how much or how little they are aware of God. In this letter here --the mother gave it to me to read-- this young man says he has discovered a wonderful Truth --a very young man, 18 years of age-- that we only retain the things that we give away! We only retain the things that we give away. My whole life and also the work of the School of Truth is built up on that Truth. We only retain the things that we give away. Let us again look into the minds of people: what are they giving away? --peace, happiness, security? Or are they giving away fear, sadness, disease and all the other negative qualities? Now, the things we give away we retain because, in effect, we are giving those things to ourselves. If you can think of God, as I do, as a sea of Life, infinite... and that I am, and so are you, tiny drops, a spark of this whole life, just a tiny drop, and that pressing around and about me, above and below me, permeating me is this one tremendous sea of Divine Intelligence --Divine Life-- not a person; here are you, the persons of God, not outside, nor in a place called heaven, not anywhere geographically situated, but here before me. I am looking at the Presence of God in different stages of growth, consciousness or development. At this moment, in that little child over there is the sum total of the Universal knowledge --but she doesn't know it. It is going to take her a long time before she has SELF consciousness, not in its negative aspect but SELF awareness.

First of all she will be trained mentally and we hope emotionally and gradually as she develops, she will begin to see spiritually. Now the sum total of the knowledge that is God in whose image she is made is within her, contained within her, actually constitutes her, but she doesn't know it. And most people that you see around and about you do not know it either because, if I can give you an example, they are looking at themselves. You see, I am looking at my own consciousness, not outside; I cannot see anything outside --there is nothing to be seen. There is no outside and inside, there is only one side --the spiritual side. So that, in effect, when I see evil or disease or unhappiness or poverty, I am looking at my consciousness. You remember what the Master said? Don't judge according to appearances but judge right judgment. And what does He mean by that? Surely if there is a thing before us and it appears to be evil and expressing power, it must be something by which we have to judge? But He said --DON'T judge by the appearances but judge righteous judgment. Now it depends entirely upon the consciousness or development of the individual as to what he is going to allow himself to see because he cannot see outside of himself. The prosperity that you may require, the happiness that you need, the health that you must have --these are all spiritual qualities, and as you see them --I don't mean look at them; so many people look, I mean as you perceive --as you see these qualities within you, they externalise. God does not create them for you. He does not cause them to be created for you. He doesn't suddenly change His Life that is within you.

His work is accomplished. You are the reflections --good or bad-- of the Presence of God. Yes, the Presence of God, not created in sin, not evil things separated from God, but His very BEINGNESS in expression on this plane of consciousness. Now, for example, this tiny atom here, myself, requires some help. I know that the whole, the macrocosm is also the microcosm, the greater is also the lesser and indelibly imprinted on this lesser is the allness, the goodness, that is God. He is not going to come into my consciousness; HE IS MY CONSCIOUSNESS, according to my perception. He is going to come in as I allow Him. I require something; all the countless millions of other drops of Life, sparks of Life, call them what you will, rush to my aid, just as the whole sea takes the one tiny drop and beats on the surf backwards and forwards; it is there in all Its infinite power to protect this one tiny drop. But most of us are, unfortunately, isolationists; we see ourselves as a tiny fragment, separated from God, and we are fearful; we are afraid, firstly of fear, which is our greatest friend because fear keeps us in touch with God, --we are afraid of death, there cannot be any death, it is geographical; if I go from here to Cape Town, it is the same as going from here to the other side, it is just a change. Health, happiness, prosperity --all these qualities are actually me as they are you. Whatever you may have demonstrated, whatever quality of good, you may have at this moment, it is mine because you are me. Listen to the Master --You shall love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength and with all thy might. That is, you shall love good, all that is good and your neighbour as yourself because your neighbour is yourself. It sounds perplexing, doesn't it? Especially some of the neighbours we know. And yet it is either true or false. Either God is the sum total of all good; He is every human being in expression, just as my limb, my hair, my skin are a part of me, so are we all the one part of the one whole of God, and if we are not in tune with the Whole, all these countless millions of hands of God cannot help us because we are out of tune. Let us assume that I am a conductor and you are my band and I am going to beat a certain tempo.

Remember, I am always right, not you. I am the man who conducts and you have to follow my tempo. That is true, isn't it? Right. Now let us say that you are playing one particular beat and the others another particular beat: what will we have here --harmony or discord? Discord. Now whose fault is it --mine or yours? It is your fault. The tempo of God beats constantly and persistently as a tempo of love and life and beauty and all that is good. That is His beat. Are you in tune through love or are you out of tune through hate? You might say --I don't hate anybody. There are only two types of emotions, two primary emotions --the negative, which separates us from God, the positive, or Love, i.e. liking, loving, adoring, all the same type of thing in a different degree. Hating, criticising, resenting, are also a form but a negative form. So if you are in tune with the negative form, it continues to beat in your life; you see it as discord which means disease, as unhappiness which is lack of love, sickness and poverty. But because you are expressing these qualities, it does not mean that you have created these qualities because, let us repeat, you are not creators! God help us if we were because we would have destroyed ourselves long, long ago, if we, in our undeveloped, immature states were creators.

There is not one person on this plane of consciousness who has reached that state of Omnipotence where he can handle It fearlessly. While there is one iota of personality in man or woman, when he seeks applause, appreciation and a hundred and one little things that his ego loves, he has not yet developed to that state where he can use Omnipotence. But there is nothing stopping him, except his own lack of development. Now I get a great deal of comfort out of the knowledge that if I see problems of a negative nature in my life or my body or my affairs I, thank God, I cannot create -- that thing or the things that are manifesting there are not creations but separations. You see the difference? To have a disease is merely to be out of tune with health -- it is disease-- dis-ease, a discomfort. Although it may be of a chronic nature, it is still a discomfort. It hasn't got any reality. It is in the consciousness of the individual; he doesn't understand it, he says --I have done nothing at all, what have I done to deserve this condition? If you are going to deal entirely with this plane of consciousness there is no answer because you can go into the various hospitals, children's hospitals, and see there the tragedies of life --what have these poor mites done? Look what God has done to them, so many people say. But you see, we can't accept that because we know that the Omnipresence of God is good and love and that we are seeing there an undeveloped state, a state of consciousness of separation.

I believe that when I pass out from this plane, I am going somewhere; I have no facts, I won't know until the time arrives; but I believe that Life is ceaseless --It never ceases to exist. Bodies may come and go but consciousness never ceases. I believe, therefore, if I am going somewhere, I must have started somewhere. You can't start from nothing and there is certainly no justice in this world if we have all started here and now; some with great wealth, happiness and health; others who have to live in the slums in great poverty and diseased and unhappy bodies. There is no justice in that. But I believe that my plane of consciousness on which I am now dwelling --the body you see here with all its defects-- is the separation in my own consciousness before I came here. Behold, I send my messenger before me to prepare the way. When I get on the other side, I will have the suit of clothes that represents the consciousness of Nicol Campbell -- no one else's suit. No injustice has been done unto me, no individual has "brought about" in my life this unhappiness but myself and whatever I may have today, if I am not satisfied, I cannot blame you or people or God --I am solely responsible.

But let me repeat, I cannot, under any circumstances (because God is Omnipresence) create evil. Does that sound stupid? All around and about you, you see evil, but where are you seeing this evil? In your sense consciousness. We are taught that God is Love, and that Love is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity. If I take a torch and go out into the darkness, will I discover any darkness? Behind me will be darkness...yes. But in front of me, wherever the radiance of my torch is will be light; nothing can destroy that light because the darkness has no substance and no power at all...it is non-existent. And so when I take the torch --our emblem of the School of Truth-- and shine that torch of Truth on sickness or unhappiness or ill-health or poverty, the only thing that can come into manifestation is the light of understanding in a sea of Life --Love-- which is health and happiness and security. Although it does not exist as a reality, you discover that 99 and 9/10ths of humanity fight to overcome this thing which has come into their lives. It is shadow boxing. It is not in their lives, it is in the wrong seeing --judging according to appearances. Just think, if we could have this for one day, just one day, and go out and about our daily business and look at our neighbours and say --There I go-- and wish that neighbour the same good that we want for ourselves, would we have the present unfortunate circumstances that we have in this world?

Is not the whole basis one of fear? Yes...but what is fear? It is not the --let me point out very clearly-- it is not the antithesis of faith, that is, it is not the opposite of faith, but it is faith, knowledge, awareness of a separation from God. In other words, we say disease is a reality and our whole emotional being is centred on this so-called reality --we make it real in our consciousness; we bind it tightly to ourselves. "This thing," said Job, (symbolical of man, the wheel of fortune, of rise and fall and then rise again) "which I have greatly feared, has come upon me." Not only did he invite these things but he guaranteed the manifestation of the separation. And in the new dispensation, the Gospel, the Master said exactly the same thing --This thing in which you have faith, it is done unto you. According to your faith, your knowledge of the presence of God or according to your knowledge of the presence of Good, it is done unto you. Now what is it you want? What does the world want? I keep on hammering away at this --what do you want? Why do you come to lectures, why do you go to your churches, why do you read your Bibles, why do you study metaphysics?

As one man said --It is an extraordinary thing about people, they will worship their particular Deity, they will die for Him, they love Him with every atom of their being, but God help them, they will not practise what He teaches them. You see, we are all prepared to die for our ideals, we are prepared to worship God, stand up and proclaim Him, but we will not practise the way of Life which He gave us. Doesn't it seem tragic that here you have a means whereby you can equate all your problems, individual, collective, worldly, by just five minutes of right-seeing? Let me get on the other side of this counter and say whatever I would have him do unto me, let me do it unto him because whatever I do unto him, is going to be done unto me --not by God but by myself. You see? We are living in a fool's paradise; the whole tempo of our life is wrong; we think we are going to gain security through material things, but material things can be taken from us in a moment of time. We can lose our faith, all the material blessings in a moment of time, but none can destroy consciousness. He that is for me, cannot be against me. Who is me? Everybody. The very hand that Love would use to give me my happiness and my security may be the hand that I am at this moment despising.

I am concentrated over here for some good that may come through you specifically for me, ignoring you, and because my attention is not universal, it never comes to me because of my limitation. How hard it appears to be to realise that all things come from within, emanate from the Spiritual Source, the Source of Life, because we cannot see it. But we can, you know. Every single desire you have is a mental picture; every urge for some good is a spiritual idea of God's, accomplished and finished, waiting for freedom through you and for freedom through me. But because we haven't unlocked the presence of God with the key of Love in our own hearts, it is there forever dammed up. All you have to do is to look at history, the history of individuals or nations; never has fear ever brought good; never has it brought happiness or love; all it has brought is catastrophe, and yet the basic teaching of the Christian Bible with which most of you are conversant, is that God is ALL PRESENCE, ALL POWER, and ALL KNOWLEDGE and that Presence and Power and Knowledge is, according to the authorities, the Kingdom of God within you --ye are the temples of this living God.

We go every way, use every channel, try every door to find entry into this consciousness, except the right door. Thou shalt LOVE the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength and with all thy might AND THY NEIGHBOUR AS THY SELF. Every bit of good that has ever come to me, flows from God through me back to Him through my neighbour. You see, I can't do without my neighbour and nor can you. Until we learn --there are two ways of learning-- the hard way of suffering, frustration and un-fulfilment, or the way of attunement or at-one-ment, bringing our minds and our hearts into tune with the presence of God everywhere evenly present at the same time. It should not be hard really, should it? If you know that my hand is going to be open to you with some good, with some token of Love, is it difficult for you to love me? I am not talking about the sloppy sentimental love that some people associate with God but kindness, compassion, forbearance, forgiveness, understanding. Is it hard to love someone who is going to be kind to you? Is it hard to love all the hands of God if you are going to be blessed by them? What would you choose? It is quite simple. Choose this day whom you will serve - -God or mammon. God or separation. Love or hate. It is a simple choice, for according to your faith, not mine, it is done unto you through the Omnipresence of Good.